Teens look to fight cancer

By Joni Koogler BANNER CORRESPONDENT

Thursday

Oct 4, 2012 at 12:01 AMOct 5, 2012 at 12:00 AM

Two West Boylston junior midget cheerleaders are doing a lot more than cheering for their team at games. Ashley Smith, 12, and Kristin Taylor, 13, are making and selling hair bows, and donating the proceeds to the UMass Cancer Walk, which took place Sunday, Sept. 23, in Worcester.

The pair’s “Bows for a Cure” campaign didn’t end with the five-mile Cancer Walk, which both girls completed for the second year in a row.

“We’re going to keep selling them through the last home game this year,” Ashley said.

“And we plan to sell them at the home games next year, too,” Kristin said.

Unfortunately, personal family experiences with cancer were the strongest impetus to get the girls involved in the cancer cause.

Ashley’s father, Greg, a Pop Warner football coach, is a stage-three cancer survivor, who has been cancer-free since April 26 last year.

“We’re very thankful. We all do the walk. My parents, my in-laws, nieces, nephews – our whole family is involved,” Greg said.

“Pop Warner football has been involved for a while,” he said. “The cheerleaders got involved first, and most of them walk. But they wanted the football players to be able to do the cancer walk, too, so they were sure to schedule all the games on Saturdays this year, so more players could walk. They’re not all walking, but a good number of them are.”

“It’s something all of Pop Warner supports,” he said.

“We’ve been walking since ‘06,” Ashley said. “We started doing the one-mile walk in ‘06, and did that every year until last year, when we started doing the five miles.”

Kristin’s tone quieted and grew emotional as she spoke of her young cousin, Maverick, who passed away five years ago from brain cancer.

“He was only 7, and we tried to do things to make him happy before he died,” Kristin said.

“We had a birthday party for him at my house that was a lot of fun. A man came to the house and brought all kinds of animals. He had a giant snake and a lot of other zoo animals at my house. It was really neat and Maverick liked it a lot,” Kristin said.

Kristin’s mom, Julie, who is aligned with Pop Warner football as head of fund-raising for the Boylston/West Boylston team, had yet another family member touched by cancer. Her cousin, Debbie, died of breast cancer. The daughter Debbie left behind has struggled with the loss of her mother.

Both Taylor parents, as well as the three Taylor children, Kristin, Caitlin, 14, and 10-year-old Jake, were scheduled to walk the five miles on Sunday.

The Smiths, a family of four, were also scheduled to walk, but on only three pair of legs. Jack Smith is only 5 years old, and Greg Smith joked most of the walk would be done with Jack on his shoulders.

The idea of helping the cancer walk with hair bows was born during a video chat between Ashley and Kristin over the summer.

“I was making duct tape bows for fun while we were video chatting,” Kristin said. “Then I showed the bows to Ashley when we were together.”

“I thought they were really pretty. I wanted to sell them so we could make money,” Ashley said. “My mom told us to get a cause to sell them for.”

Giving the money to benefit finding a cure for cancer was the first thought of both girls.

“We knew we wanted to help with cancer,” Ashley said.

“It was easy, what we first thought of,” Kaitlin agreed.

The girls have even created a Facebook page to advertise their bows. Their “Bows for a Cure” site details the progress of the campaign to date and includes photos of the hair fashions. Customers can place orders on the site.

“We’ve got them all different colors and sizes. We’ll custom-make anything someone would like,” Kristin said.

We’ll do anything people want,” Ashley said. “We usually put the bows on hair elastics, but we can put them on barrettes, if someone wants. Those cost $3, the hair elastic ones are $4.”

By the time the cancer walk had rolled around, the girls were already near $200 in sales, with more Pop Warner games to go.

“We’ve only been selling since the beginning of August, so that’s pretty good,” Ashley said.

“And we’re not done, yet,” Kristin said.

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